Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Alison

photo via Charleston City Paper


That beautiful woman is my friend Alison Piepmeier. I have never met Alison in person, but I've read her writing for years, delighted in her adorable daughter Maybelle, and one, glorious night talked on the phone with her for more than an hour when she was visiting southern California. She appears in the extreme parenting video that I made years ago as well (her writing about Maybelle's Down Syndrome is some of the most incisive disability writing today). Alison is a rebel, an intellectual, a raucous feminist, and a warm and beautiful person of formidable intellect. She just had brain surgery and is struggling to articulate herself in the way she has for many years as a vocal advocate for the disabled, the underserved, women, and the LGBT community. The surgery impacted the part of her brain that governs speech and language, and while she has a good chance of recovering, she still faces chemo and radiation. This morning, I sat in bed sipping coffee and was delighted to see that she had written a column again for the Charleston City Paper. What I didn't expect was to find myself weeping pretty copious amounts of tears into my coffee. The column is decisively NOT inspiration porn -- that bane of many of us in the disability community -- but it is at once heartbreaking and tremendously inspiring. It'll take your tears and your breath.

Molto forte e corragio, Alison. We love you.

13 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing. This much I know: Alison is surely NOT an "ordinary" woman leading an "ordinary" life.

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  2. Almost too much to bear, and that was just reading about it. No coffee, I'm just crying into my tee shirt. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. xo

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  3. Wow. What an amazing body of work that was. Thank you for sharing.

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  4. Holy Moly. I'm so glad I read that. I just had a major perspective adjustment, which was badly needed.

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  5. So good to read this. Thanks for posting it.

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  6. Oh, Elizabeth, I love you so much. Thank you.

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  7. I love that portrait, the way it zeroes in on the scar and yet shows her and her character so clearly.

    I'll read her column when I'm not at work!

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  8. This was very powerful. I have been an admirer of hers for some time. She has made important contributions related to the acceptance of people with intersex conditions, like my son. We need her heart, her mind, and her voice!

    Pam Crawford (a fellow South Carolinian)

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  9. Thank you for sharing this Elizabeth. I'm overwhelmed and humbled by her courage and grace in facing this. I wish she didn't have to.

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  10. I saw on an the Charlie Foundation fb page that the American Brain Tumor foundation are encouraging the use of the Ketogenic diet for brain tumors!That may be old news but hoped it might help your friend.There is a webinar:
    http://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgoo.gl%2FK2eDn0&h=GAQG2fatt&enc=AZOTg-EifSNHDRlqxL_euqoNnEqmHfEw5rhUxDD0pR16K0mVqwbl_t8F1ByeGohTpMs&s=1

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  11. Thank you for posting - I hadn't seen that article!

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